Impact case study database

Dr Bush’s research has contributed decisively to transforming the African literary landscape. It has led to social, cultural and economic impacts for literary activists, archivists, curators and museums, as well as the wider public, across francophone Africa and the African diaspora.

Established new, multilingual, literary networks across multiple African countries

Bush’s research has influenced a cultural shift on the African continent, from a primarily economic model of literary entrepreneurship, to a politically motivated notion of literary activism. As the founder of Writivism Festival and the Centre for African Cultural Excellence (CACE) (Uganda) notes ‘It was while in South Africa [during the #RhodesMustFall protests] that I read Ruth Bush's work on New Beacon Books [3.2], and given closer interactions with Ntone Edjabe at Chimurenga [influential Pan-African cultural collective], it became clearer to me that the work the countless literary initiatives are doing is more political than professional. To borrow Fanon's words, they are creating new humans’ [5.1].

As part of this shift in thinking, Bush, Prof Krishnan (Bristol), and Dr Wallis (Exeter) were invited to develop and facilitate the annual Arts Managers and Literary Activists (AMLA) workshops (2016-2018), which brought together 60 literary activists from over 15 countries across the continent, in partnership with Writivism and CACE. The workshops provided access to inspiring examples of literary activism in Africa, and have led to a more formalised and autonomous AMLA network (52 individual/organisations are now members). They were followed by mentorship by established African literary activists of five new literary initiatives across East, West and Southern Africa. These include: Abidjan Lit literary collective (Côte d’Ivoire) which has since held seven live literature events (audience of c.100) and set up (March 2020) the 1949 Library, Côte d’Ivoire’s first reading room for African women’s writing - they maintain an active social media presence (3,600 Facebook followers on 23 Oct 2020) and website, through which they offer translation and editing services, literary tours, and reading events for children and young adults; and Mawazo Africa Writing Institute (Uganda) which has held 3 writing workshops for 18 authors, leading to two novels currently in press with Mawazo-Huza Press series [5.2].

In 2018, Bush commissioned and managed the production and distribution of a substantial feasibility study conducted by Dr Georgina Collins. Based on interviews with over 60 translators, publishers, academics, and writers, the bilingual report has attracted widespread interest (1,172 downloads in English; 607 downloads in French; 150 physical copies distributed to study participants), including from many literary professionals based in other countries not involved directly in the study – Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, Madagascar, South Africa, France and the US. Working with Bakwa Media (Cameroon – participants in the AMLA network) and Abidjan Lit in her research on literary translation, Bush co-developed and delivered a creative writing and literary translation workshop which took place in Yaoundé in 2019 with 24 participants. The latter was the first of its kind on the African continent and drew directly on findings and demand established by the feasibility study. It resulted in the publication of Bakwa Books Anthology, Your Feet Will Lead You Where Your Heart Is/ Le crépuscule des âmes sœurs (2020; launch delayed due to Covid-19). It has led to economic impact: Bakwa Media now have contracts with Parisian literary agent Pierre Astier to publish a translation of Hemley Boum’s Les jours viennent et passent by one of the participants in the Bakwa workshop; and one participant in the Bakwa creative writing workshop has signed to the British literary agency, Laxfield Literary Associates [5.3].

Inspired new forms of curatorial practice and contributed to cultural heritage preservation and interpretation in the UK and Senegal

Bush’s research on Black British publishing [3.2] has brought economic, educational and cultural benefits for New Beacon Books (NBB) and the George Padmore Institute (GPI – a key archival hub for Black British history and cultural activism). During this REF period:

• Her research informed a successful exhibition at Islington Museum (May-Aug 2015), attended by over 5,000 people, giving visibility to NBB’s political and cultural role;

• Bush convened a book club (four editions in 2014, total attendance c. 100), which brought new people, including local schoolteachers, to NBB and the GPI;

• Her research provided a stepping-stone for both organisations to consider their future sustainability, which led to three successful grants from HLF, Arts Council England, and Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust (totaling GBP105,228 between 2016-2020). The funding helped GPI host 7 events and appoint a ‘poet-in-residence’, Jay Bernard, whose poetry was published alongside Dr Bush’s essay, and subsequently in the collection Surge, which won the 2018 Ted Hughes Prize [5.4].

Through the AWA project [3.5], international audiences and staff and visitors at the Musée de la Femme Henriette Bathily (MUFEM) and Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire-Cheikh Anta Diop (IFAN-Ch. A. Diop), in Dakar, Senegal have gained new understanding of Senegalese print heritage and its associated social and political role. In 2016, Bush worked with these established, but under-resourced, institutions on a new multimedia exhibition and website archive of AWA – one of the earliest African women’s magazines. The AWA website presents the ‘scattered archive’ as a digitised magazine. It has had 4,464 users (as of 27 Oct 2020), 26 percent of whom are based on the African continent, with most African users based in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Congo-Kinshasa [5.5].

The exhibition ran at MUFEM in Dakar from November 2017 – April 2018, attracting c. 3,000 paying visitors, before moving on. It was reproduced in Montpellier (March-April 2018; c. 1,000 visitors – a freely accessible event in the university library corridors, launched as part of the Semaine de l’Afrophonie) and Bordeaux (May-July 2019; c. 1,000 visitors, also hosted without entry charge in the university library, as part of the Afrophonie week); a planned transition to Marseille (June-July 2020) was postponed due to Covid-19. The exhibition heightened awareness among cross-generational international audiences of AWA as a pioneering publishing initiative in a formative period of history for Senegalese women. One visitor commented, ‘This exhibition plunged me back into a mirror, a world, a familiar and distant dimension […] a period anchored within me’. Another visitor (based in Guinea-Conakry), and President of the Fondation Solidarité Féminine de Guinée, wrote of her ‘joy in discovering through this magazine the path forged by these Black women. These spaces which give women the opportunity to express themselves. Thank you again for this beautiful initiative.’ The exhibition received national and international press coverage, including front page of the national Senegalese daily paper, Le Soleil, a Radio France Internationale programme (broadcast in English), and TV5 Monde news segment [5.6].

For staff at MUFEM and the original founders of the magazine, the exhibition valorised and raised MUFEM’s international profile, bringing c. 3,000 visitors and raising revenue (c. GBP3,500) through entry fees and sales of related items. There was a wide range of enthusiastic comments on the ‘commentary wall’, several school groups, and a well-attended (300+) launch event. The exhibition was included in the official programme of the Ateliers de la Pensée (a major annual African/Diaspora intellectual and artistic gathering, organised by Achille Mbembe and Felwine Sarr). Staff at the MUFEM spoke enthusiastically of the project during our evaluation meeting in April 2019 (‘Awa was a hit!’ commented one gallery attendant). MUFEM were inspired to keep the ‘commentary wall’ for subsequent exhibitions, enabling them to continue capturing audience responses and showing a long-term commitment to changing their practices [5.6].

Staff at IFAN-Ch. A Diop (who undertook the digitisation) have benefitted from involvement as an integral part of the project. Training was provided, building capacity and enthusiasm in a chronically under-resourced institution where there is little opportunity for continuing professional development. The local and international success of the project’s digital element and the exhibition has encouraged the team at IFAN-Ch. A Diop to continue with independent work on this material and new digitisation initiatives. They contributed to an International Women’s Day event in March 2018 by producing their own video montage of the magazine to screen at events. They have secured further funding via recently awarded grants in France: IUF (EUR75,000) and Erasmus (EUR34,480) [5.7].

Inspired new artworks

The AWA project has generated broader interest in the material and in preserving heritage digitally, leading to new understandings of the representation of African women in the public sphere. American artist, Fahamu Pecou, decided to use an AWA cover as the basis for a new artwork, “Jigéén Bu Bé Fenkna (Dawn of Woman)”, exhibited in New York in summer 2018. Multiple requests were received via the digital portal to use AWA images for projects (forthcoming Editions Gallimard book on Women and Literature; Dakar-based tailor, Njit Couture, found design inspiration in the magazine’s photos; the Instagram “Africa Style Archive” featured 2 images, with 341 likes (23 Oct 2020); SWAG Something We Africans Got African art magazine featured a 13-page illustrated spread), alongside enquiries from elderly people involved in the original project, or inspired by its premise (e.g. Guinean Women’s organisation; daughter of original printer of AWA magazine, Awa Hélène Diop) [5.8].

Influencing policy on international collaborations

Bush’s extensive experience in research collaborations has contributed to ensuring long-term productive collaborations with colleagues based on the African continent, especially in historically francophone regions (she was awarded an ERC Starting Grant worth EUR1.5 million in September 2020). She contributed to the APPG coalition’s (Africa; Diaspora, Development and Migration; Malawi) report on UK visa refusals for African visitors (launched July 2019) by providing written evidence for the APPG meeting and inquiry convened by Chi Onwurah MP in 2019 [5.9]. The evidence provided by Bush highlighted that African visitors to the UK (2016-2018) were twice as likely to be refused a visa, which subsequently prompted a parliamentary debate around use of algorithms to process visa applications (Hansard, 19 June 2019, vol. 662). Bush has personally pursued four instances where a visa has been refused or delayed for a project partner, requesting evidence, contacting the Royal African Society, Ambassadors in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, and subject associations (African Studies Association UK). In two instances this enabled a visa decision to be overturned. This work has become a vital element of the research process for Africanist scholars based in the UK in the current political climate.

Since 2014, Burdett’s research on Italy and the Islamic World [3.4] and the Transnationalizing Modern Languages (TML) project have impacted educational institutions, UK research funding bodies, cultural institutions, artists and the wider public.

A. Shaped curriculum design in modern languages within secondary and tertiary education in the UK and internationally

The TML project offers a more robust methodological basis for modern languages, providing a clearer disciplinary identity and tightening the connections between language and culture teaching. In response to the TML project, Modern Language departments across the world have adapted their curriculum to foreground the transnational. For example:

Higher Education

• Cardiff University, UK: ‘We revised our curriculum in 2018 and shifted the focus so that our programmes would concentrate on the ‘transnational’. Instead of thinking about languages as something specific to a country or region, transnational teaching looks at languages and cultures and how they sit in the wider world. Our new curriculum has been cited as innovative best practice in the sector by the University Council of Modern Languages’ [5.2].

• Monash University, Australia: ‘[the TML project] has influenced my approach to the current internal review of the European Languages offering at Monash, in particular through a stronger focus on broader European and global perspectives, postcolonial issues, and multilingualism; as well as a stronger attention on how global challenges and changes are reflected in specific local communities’ – Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies and Chair of a review into European Languages curricula [5.2].

• California State University, US: ‘In my own case, since being involved in the project, attending conferences where the team presented their ideas and reading about them, I have substantially revised my syllabi.  For example, my Italian Women Writers class this semester includes women writers from across language traditions as it seeks to underscore the issues that women shared over time and space.  I have also included women from the Italian diaspora, or women closely involved in Italian history, such as the Brazilian, Anita Garibaldi, who fought alongside her husband in Latin American revolutions as well as in Italy’ – Director of the Clorinda Donato Center for Global Romance Languages and Translation Studies [5.2].

One major outcome of the TML project is the Transnational Modern Languages book series published with Liverpool University Press (LUP) [5.1]. The series, underpinned by TML research, explores the transnational approach in different language areas (five have been published already: German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish; French is forthcoming in 2021). Each volume offers a reconceptualisation of that particular field in the light of the transnational approach through a series of case studies. These are crossover volumes: they include new academic research but are also designed to be accessible to undergraduate students, modelling the possibilities of the transnational approach as a distinctive framework for modern languages. The series will be anchored by a Handbook (forthcoming 2021), which offers a conceptual vocabulary for modern languages in the light of the transnational turn. The series has sold 425 copies (hardback, paperback and e-sales) up to 31 December 2020 [5.1].

• Anonymous peer review of Transnational Italian Studies: ‘A bold, needed step forward in rethinking Italian Studies… There is no other volume like this, and it is going to have a profound impact in the teaching of Italian Studies’ [5.1]

• Anonymous peer review of Transnational Russian Studies: ‘The volume is brilliantly conceived and the quality of the chapters is universally high… a very sophisticated and … very accessible discussion of the issues involved with the… transnational’ [5.1]

• LUP states that the series is one of the most ambitious attempts to move the discipline forward, with promising sales in the UK and the US [5.1].

Secondary level:

• The TML team worked with teachers and pupils at Castlebrae Community High School and Drummond Community High School in Edinburgh. Pupils investigated the transnational connections between language, culture, and heritage in their own families and local area, and produced artistic projects showcasing these connections. The project embedded awareness of language and cultural identity in a cross-curricular setting beyond the modern languages classroom [5.3].

Beyond modern languages:

• The TML team collaborated with the Phoenix Project at Cardiff University and the University of Namibia (UNAM), promoting awareness of multilingualism and translingual practices in education and the media in Namibia. Both a Senior Lecturer and the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at UNAM report that the projected resulted in the creation of ‘resources for schools and the medical sector’ as well as the development of ‘intensive awareness-raising instruction on working and teaching in multilingual environments for medical professionals’. The work carried out by TML on the centrality of translation in multilingual contexts and on its links with forms of social and geographic mobility was mobilised to create resources for schools and the medical sector. Training aimed at health professionals will be embedded into Higher Education curricula as well as Continuing Professional Development, via the training programme run by UNAM across Namibia’s regional centres [5.4].

B. Contributed to and informed modern language policy and debate in the UK and beyond

It is widely recognised that the UK suffers from a shortage of language skills, and this shortage has negative consequences for trade and the economy, as well as cultural understanding. Enrolments in modern languages have fallen sharply, both at A Level, and in Higher Education. TML is, in part, a response to these trends, and has helped spearhead initiatives to invigorate modern languages across the UK and beyond. The TML Policy Report [5.5], ‘ Transnationalizing Modern Languages: Reframing Language Education for a Global Future’ was launched at the British Academy (BA) in November 2018 and subsequently presented to MPs by the AHRC Lead in Modern Languages. It has subsequently influenced modern language policies and debates in the UK and internationally:

• Lead Fellow of Languages at BA: ‘[TML] informed the vision of how languages should operate in UK society’ – ‘Languages in the UK’ Policy Framework, March 2019 [5.6]

• TML played a central role in the conceptualisation of the Salzburg Global Seminar’s ‘Statement for a Multilingual World’, disseminated internationally in 40 languages in 2018, and supported by the British Council, Microsoft, and UNESCO among others [5.7]. For example, the statement’s Call To Action reads ‘We call on [stakeholders] to help: Develop language policies, practices and technologies that support cohesive and dynamic societies with positive attitudes to multilingualism and plurilingualism.’ In 2020, the statement was reproduced by UNESCO in their ‘ Approaches to Language in Education for Migrants and Refugees in the Asia-Pacific Region’ policy report [5.7]

• TML influenced and is cited in ‘Towards a National Languages Strategy: Education and Skills’ [5.6], co-authored by the BA, AHRC, Association of School and College Leaders, the British Council and Universities UK (July 2020).

TML has also influenced the UK funding body’s investment in modern languages research:

• TML inspired AHRC’s GBP16 million Open World Research Initiative (OWRI). In 2015, AHRC’s Director of Research stated that the TML project ‘played a significant role in the development of thinking around [OWRI]… a key investment by AHRC in seeking to sustain the UK’s research capabilities in modern languages.’ The OWRI initiative energised modern languages research, funding four major research projects that have transformed attitudes towards languages and language-learning in the UK, including policy impacts in areas as diverse as education, arts policy, and security [5.8].

C. Enhanced public understanding of transnationalism and cultural identities through museum collaborations and workshops

In 2016, the TML team collaborated with artists and curators to create the exhibition ‘ Beyond Borders: Transnational Italy’. The exhibition positioned Italy and Italian culture in a transnational perspective, providing audiences with new ways to think about language, culture, and national identity more broadly.

• The exhibition appeared at the British School at Rome (Oct-Nov 2016) and the Italian Cultural Institute in London (Dec 16-Jan 17).

• Smaller exhibitions appeared at the Calandra Institute, New York (March 2018), the Italian Museum, Melbourne (May 2017), and the Italian Cultural Institute, Addis Ababa (Oct 2017).

• One attendee stated that ‘as a speaker of Italian, and learner of Spanish and Portuguese, I’ve struggled to keep these in separate containers in my mind. Now I will embrace the connections without worrying about language interference’ [5.9].

TML engaged with local communities in the UK, Argentina, Australia, and Italy, focusing on how migration is experienced and on its legacy for subsequent generations. TML held workshops in the West Midlands (2015-16) on multilingual creative writing, engaging with community languages including Arabic, Croatian, Italian, Somali, and Yoruba [5.9].

D. Inspired and coproduced new forms of artistic expression

TML highlighted how creative work encourages greater awareness of the linguistic and cultural practices which are embedded in everyday life, revealing how human identities and subjectivities are increasingly bound up with language and culture. TML collaborated with creative practitioners through workshops and exhibitions [5.9], inspiring new forms of artistic expression.

• One poet wrote: “working together with TML for the last three years [2014-2017] is a constant growing experience for me as a writer in a multilingual environment” [5.10]

• Luci Callipari-Marcuzzo, a multidisciplinary artist in Australia created a new live-art performance for the Beyond Borders exhibition. For Luci, this was a springboard to global audiences and further commissions, including the Italianità: Artists of the Italian Diaspora Reflect on History and Identity exhibition, Italian American Museum, Los Angeles [5.10]

• Mario Badagliacca, a photographer and TML artist-in-residence, received several invitations following his participation in the exhibitions, including Columbus University, Ohio, the University of Colorado, and a solo exhibition at Johns Hopkins Hall (2017). LUP has commissioned a photographic book, Italy is Out (forthcoming 2021) [5.10].

E. Challenging populist nationalism and monolingual bias

The TML project coincided with, on the one hand, a moment of increased globalisation and mobility, and, on the other, a counter-current of insular nationalism, signalled in the UK by Brexit, and elsewhere by the rise of populist leaders with nationalist platforms (e.g., Trump in the US; Orbán in Hungary). The transnational paradigm provides an alternative both to the liberal internationalism of the 1990s, which dismissed the national altogether, and to the insularity of the post-2008 recession age, which would build walls between peoples. Ultimately, TML alters our understanding of the relationship between language, nation, and culture, putting paid to the populist vision of countries as discrete, ethnonational entities, a vision that modern languages have sometimes unwittingly served. In its place, TML emphasises how language, culture and people are forever transgressing national borders. Dethroning monolingualism and monoculturalism, TML shows how human beings create culture and forge identities across linguistic, cultural, and national borders. This vision is at the heart of all TML activity: it is laid out in the book series [5.1], it informs the approach to policy [5.5-5.7] and it is brought to life through educational activity [5.2, 5.3] and creative practice [5.9, 5.10].

During this REF period, Price’s research has informed successful collaborations with museum professionals and artists, transforming their practice and leading to inclusion of artworks by neglected women artists in exhibitions and cultural representations of the German Modernist period.

Transforming Curatorial Practice in the Museum Sector

Price’s research on previously neglected or forgotten women artists, as well as the unique perspective that women artists bring to orthodox narratives of German Modernism, has informed the design and development of new exhibitions, as well as reinterpretations of existing exhibitions and holdings, in four major UK cultural institutions.

In 2014, Price won a GBP24,000 contract with Leicester City Council to consult and conduct research for the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery’s unique collection of modern German art - distinguished by its focus on modern German women as patrons, artists, collectors and subjects. As the collection’s curator states [5.1], Price was awarded the contract based on her research on Lotte Laserstein [3.7] and her essay for the Manchester ‘Sensory War’ exhibition ( https://manchesterartgallery.org/exhibitions-and-events/exhibition/the-sensory-war/). He continues ‘the majority of scholarship on the interwar period is about mainstream canonical work, and Dorothy’s work is important because it broadens awareness of work that is different in subject, for example, her work on Sella Hasse, Käthe Kollwitz, Lotte Laserstein, Gabriele Münter, Paula Modersohn-Becker – all artists represented in Leicester’s collection’ [5.1]. Through her research, Price provided a unique perspective into the work and experiences of women artists in Germany in ways that the museum had not previously examined. It is this expertise that informed a permanent re-hang of the galleries, as well as a re-interpretation of the artworks, particularly ‘about the role of women and how to represent that in the redisplay’ [5.1]. Her new research on Leicester’s collection was published online in a series of publicly accessible reports, and included in a dedicated website of further resources on Expressionism in England [5.1].

The exhibition was opened by Leicester’s City Mayor in September 2014, who commented ‘Leicester’s collection of German Expressionist art is already internationally renowned, but the new gallery and the presentation of the collection online for the first time will open up the artworks to a whole new audience’ [5.9]. Price promoted the collections and the rehang through participation in a public symposium (50 attendees) held onsite in the gallery shortly after its re-opening. In 2018, she was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s The Cultural Front to discuss the collection ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05spjym).

In 2017, Price collaborated with Tate Britain in developing their First World War centenary exhibition, Aftermath, which ran from 5 June to 23 September 2018. Price’s expertise meant the Exhibition Curator was able to include more works from Germany in the exhibition than would otherwise have been the case [5.2]. The exhibition included 13 female artists [5.4]. Furthermore, the Exhibition Curator noted that Price’s research [3.4] ‘led me to shift in how I thought about work in the Tate’s own collection… An example is Edward Burra’s The Snack Bar…Dorothy’s interpretation was about women’s increased freedom in public spaces and this gave us a different perspective on this work, which we have previously discussed in terms of the theme of prostitution. Dorothy’s work here has encouraged the institution to re-think the painting’s interpretation’ [5.2]. According to a Tate report, the exhibition exceeded its target of 64,935 visitors, with 67,585 attending [5.4]. Visitor responses were very positive. Comments included: ‘emotional and enlightening’, ‘most powerful exhibition I have ever attended’, ‘wonderful and beautifully curated’, ‘brilliant, moving and some incredible paintings’ [5.4].

In addition, as a result of a public ‘in conversation’ event held at Tate Britain in conjunction with the Aftermath exhibition, the Tate’s Curator of Public Programmes indicated that Price made a significant contribution that enabled the event to achieve its aim of ‘provok[ing] critical reflection on the subject of the exhibition, to get members of the public thinking more deeply about the subject matter and to stimulate their learning’ [5.3]. Price provided new cross-cultural perspectives on the work by women artists presented in the exhibition and engaged a public audience of c. 80 people who attended on a mid-weeknight in June. Price continues to work with Tate as a consultant on a regular basis.

In 2017, Price collaborated with artist Chantal Joffe on a co-curated exhibition of Joffe’s work in dialogue with German Expressionist artist Paula Modersohn-Becker for The Lowry in Salford (August 2017-May 2018). The exhibition, entitled Personal Feeling is the Main Thing, was visited by over 24,000 people, including children and schools [5.6]. As one visitor commented ‘about time images of women in public galleries are of themselves and not as objects. Very moving’ [5.7]. Through Price’s influence and contacts, the exhibition brought Modersohn-Becker’s work to the North of England for the first time [5.5].

Price was invited by the Arnolfini Exhibitions Producer as the leading expert on artist Chantal Joffe [3.1] to co-curate an exhibition with the artist. The exhibition Chantal Joffe. For Esme with Love and Squalor, ran from 3 September 2020 to 22 November 2020. The exhibition was originally planned for April 2020 - September 2020 but was postponed due to Covid-19. After being curtailed on 2 November, a film of the exhibit extended the exhibition until 31 December https://arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/rising-arts-agency-chantal-joffe/. Arnolfini’s Exhibitions Producer comments that ‘the project has been enriched by [Dorothy’s] critical understanding of art history, positioning Chantal’s work within a fascinating lineage of artists and writers, strengthening the overall context of the exhibition’ which has allowed Arnolfini ‘to develop a number of different access points for audiences, creating multiple layers and narratives to explore what might otherwise not have formed in such a way’. Price’s approach enabled Arnolfini to position artists within different transnational contexts and histories, which the Exhibitions Producer commented gave her ‘pause for reflection when approaching similar projects’ [5.8].

According to the Exhibitions Producer at Arnolfini ‘the role that Dorothy has played in this has been crucial to this process. Through her intimate knowledge of Chantal’s work (and working methods) she has contributed substantially to the selection (and reconsideration) of artwork, the development of key themes and the narrative drive of the exhibition’ [5.8].

Despite the restrictions of social distancing as a result of Covid-19, visitor numbers for the exhibition have been healthy. Visitor feedback has been positive, including the ex-president of the RWA saying it was the best show they had seen here in years. The exhibition had 6,644 visitors as of 25 October 2020, which given that they are operating reduced hours under Covid-19 is fantastic; and the catalogues and postcards are continuing to sell really well [5.8]. As part of the exhibition, Price co-hosted an ‘in conversation with’ public event with the artist Joffe on 28 October 2020 ( https://arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/art-in-the-city-chantal-joffe-dorothy-price/). The recorded event was attended by 79 members of the public (GBP5.45 per ticket).

Price has also been commissioned to consult on, curate, or conduct research for:

• Manchester Art Gallery – The Sensory War 1914-2014 exhibition essay (2014)

• Neue Galerie, New York — Berlin Metropolis exhibition catalogue essay on ‘The New Woman’ (2015)

• Museum Ludwig, Cologne — Karl Schenker exhibition catalogue essay (2016)

• Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt — Splendour and Misery exhibition catalogue (2017)

• The Lowry, Salford - co-curated exhibition and catalogue, Chantal Joffe in dialogue with Paula Modersohn-Becker (2017-2018)

• Sky Arts Mystery of the Lost Paintings feature length documentary about German Expressionism (2018)

• RA250 lecture - Invited public conversation with Chantal Joffe to celebrate RA 250 anniversary (2019)

Beyond this REF period, Price was commissioned by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 2018 to curate their upcoming Rethinking Expressionism exhibition, which is due to run from October 2022 to January 2023, before touring to the Kunstmuseum, The Hague, from March 2023-June 2023. This landmark exhibition will be the first female artist only exhibition in the 252-year history of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Inspiring Artistic Practice and the Production of New Artworks

As well as placing German modernist women artists within shared European histories of art, Price’s research has shaped their transnational legacy. Her work on German women artists [3.6] Paula Modersohn-Becker, Gabriele Münter and Lotte Laserstein, as well as her knowledge of the contexts in which they worked, has had a deeply profound effect on Chantal Joffe’s practice as an artist, which has inspired new bodies of work. Through conversations with Price, Joffe was able to gain a better understanding of post-war German art, which she described as ‘really meaningful for me, my practice, and my knowledge of Modersohn-Becker… Without Dorothy I would never have gone to Worpswede. It led me to do different things, such as use polaroids to document the trip, which I see in many ways as a pilgrimage, and these polaroids ended up in the exhibition book - something that hadn’t been planned.’ Through Price’s research, Joffe was able to learn about Gabriele Münter (a German expressionist artist), which inspired Joffe to a new series of paintings of ‘interiors’ in her kitchen after seeing Münter’s paintings of the inside of her house [5.5].

Quipu’s impacts have been felt at local and global levels – by the victims of forced sterilisations, numerous NGOs and activists, creative practitioners, and the wider public. It continues to shape new projects in South America through its example and the activities of those whose careers it developed. Quipu has: empowered victims, strengthened access to justice and contributed to community development; informed campaigns for justice and stimulated political debate; enhanced public awareness and understanding of the sterilisations and contributed to the process of memorialisation; inspired creative and educational practitioners worldwide [5.1].

Empowered victims, strengthened access to justice, and contributed to community development

The four collaborating Peruvian women’s organisations were co-producers of the research, meaning sterilised women participated fully in the Quipu project design. These organisations were trained by the Quipu team in eliciting testimonies and building story-telling confidence. One participant recalled that ‘Quipu gave us the confidence to know that we should not feel shame, that we were not alone, that we could stand together and fight for our rights’. Another said ‘it’s like we [participants in the research] are one big family…I feel proud, I feel happy to listen [to the other testimonies] and happy that others are listening to what we’re saying’. One participant reported that ‘it has taught us we have rights…that we are not humiliated, we are still here, our lives matter. Even though they did that to us, we’re not incapable, we still have rights just like everyone else, like professional people, that we’re at the same level as them’ [5.2]. Quipu offered these groups’ members a way to thrive through increased confidence, generating a positive ripple effect on their communities and beyond as their voices were amplified worldwide. Group leaders learned new skills (public speaking, negotiation, campaigning), widened their sphere of influence, and enhanced their ability to create social change at communal, national and international levels. Some participants called the phone line years after leaving their testimony, to listen to, and find solidarity with, others.

Since her participation in Quipu research, Esperanza Huayama has become the president of her local women’s organisation and one of the most recognised faces in the campaign for justice for Peruvians affected by sterilisation. She has been interviewed by international media and spoke directly to over 3 million listeners on BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour (2017) [5.4]. She represented sterilised women in a public meeting with the Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and travelled internationally to advocate for justice. 299 sterilised women, like Esperanza, participated in 15 Quipu workshops across Peru, building impetus for their campaign. As Esperanza said in the Guardian short film [5.3]: ‘Before we didn’t even know what communication was. Now we can communicate, we can understand what we feel in our bodies. We can now talk to be heard by other women, by the authorities, by other countries.’

Building on Quipu’s efforts to thread together fragmented storytelling and justice-seeking efforts, in 2017, Quipu supported the second national conference of AMAEF, the National Association of Groups of Sterilized Women, and the first to be held outside Lima. 40 participants from the departments of Ayacucho, Cuzco, Ucayali, Lima and Piura met in Huancabamba. The meeting resulted in a new national structure for organisation and several groups affiliating for the first time [5.7]. One noted: ‘We would not have been able to come together, to get to know one another, and to plan our future strategy, without Quipu. Now we are stronger, together, working so that this terrible past is not forgotten’ [5.2].

Quipu’s impact at a local level arose because of the ethos of trust and co-partnership that sustained its work, in collaboration with Peruvian NGOs such as Amnesty International Peru, DEMUS, the IAMAMC-AMHBA (Institute of Support for the Autonomous Movement of Peasant Women, part of the Association of Women of Huancabamba) and the AMAEFC-GTL (Association of Women Affected by Forced Sterilisations of Cusco), in addition to non-institutionalised groups of sterilised people from the district of Independencia in Ayacucho.

Informed campaigns for justice and stimulated political debate

Over 2014-2016, Quipu worked alongside several Peruvian organisations (DEMUS, Amnesty, GREF, AMAEF and others) to focus national attention on the forced sterilisations, and to place the victims and their calls for justice centre-stage. The combination of local testimonies with global awareness enabled Quipu to bring the forced sterilisations out of the margins of public discourse in Peru and into the centre of political debate to gain justice and reparations, in particular during the run-up to the 2016 presidential elections [5.5, 5.7]. A woman from Callao, Peru (response #758) called Quipu during the campaign to say that ‘I have heard the testimonies of the women that were sterilised. I feel inspired by the fight and by the courage of these women’ [3.5]. The leading candidate for president, Keiko Fujimori, had to confront the story in which her father, former president Alberto Fujimori, was heavily implicated (Jelke Boesten, ‘Peace for Whom? Legacies of Gender-Based Violence in Peru’ in Hillel Soifer; Alberto Vergara, eds., Politics after Violence: and Legacies of the Shining Path Conflict in Peru (University of Texas Press, 2019), chapter 6).

In 2015, testimonies collected by Quipu were used in Amnesty International’s ‘Against Her Will’ campaign, which resulted in a petition of 10,898 signatures demanding justice. It was the power of the collective testimony that enabled Quipu to appeal to groups beyond Amnesty’s traditional supporters.

The online archive of Quipu testimonies [3.5] continues to be used by the victims in their fight for justice, through legal proceedings against ex-President Alberto Fujimori, as well as ex-officials of his administration, for their leading role in the forced sterilisations. The testimonies are being used by legal representatives in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. When asked what the impact of Quipu had been for her, one of the leaders of the women’s groups stood up and stated: ‘We are going to continue our struggle! Now we have strength, and support from far away. Now we know how to commit ourselves to the struggle together, not weakly like we did before. Long live Quipu! Long live the Women who were sterilised without their consent!’

Enhanced public awareness and understanding of Peru’s forced sterilisation and contributed to the process of memorialisation

Quipu elevated the international debate around Peru’s forced sterilisations and amplified the voices of women who are traditionally marginalised from media and politics. In December 2015, the Quipu Project online archive [3.5] was launched with parallel events in Lima and Bristol. Its stories have been listened to by over 21,000 unique users in 127 countries around the world. Total listening time stood at over 117 hours (November 2017). The project was covered in China, India, the USA, and across South America and Europe, in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Independent, Scroll India, Wired, BBC World Service, TV Perú Noticias, La República, The Conversation, Latin Correspondent, New Internationalist, El País, New Statesman and others [5.4]. The Guardian commissioned a film about it [5.3] which was seen by 37,001 YouTube viewers (31 July 2020) plus thousands more on The Guardian’s own site. The Head of Video at The Guardian commented that ‘by amplifying their story on the Guardian, we and the excellent filmmakers took their story to a significant audience, spread their story to 100,000s of viewers who were not aware of them, were inspired by them, and looked out for further iterations of their story and the story of those like them. The film was universally praised for its originality and its beauty, but most of all for its new information’ [5.3]. In 2016 and 2017 the film was screened at 10 micro-cinemas around Peru to a combined audience of 2,000, revealing Quipu’s collective histories to previously isolated communities [5.3].

Working with the new national memory museum the Lugar de la Memoria (LUM), Quipu’s findings were subsequently disseminated through talks and an exhibition that ran from 2016 to 2019, being visited by 70,537 people in 2017 alone. In a 2019 event, the director of LUM remarked that Quipu ‘made a remarkable contribution to our creation of a space for memory in Peru – it enables forgotten voices to be heard, and changes history’. Coverage of Quipu in Peru in 2017 in traditional print media (El Comercio, La República newspapers ) radio (Radio Programas del Perú, Radio Onda Azul) and online media (including La Mula) was estimated to have reached over 2 million Peruvians [5.9].

Quipu method adopted by creative and educational practitioners worldwide, leading to greater inclusion of marginalised groups in documentary/history-sharing

The Quipu method has illustrated that the creative use of technology in story-telling and history-sharing can achieve local impacts as well as global reach. It has been used as an educational resource in over 20 universities worldwide, in a variety of disciplines such as Cultural Studies at Queen’s University Belfast; in Translation at Warwick; in Media Arts at Occidental College California: ‘The attention to access and inclusion demonstrated by the Quipu Project team and their advisory board at every stage of the process is exemplary’ (Professor); and in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California: ‘The Quipu Project opened my eyes and made me realise the brutality behind the mass sterilisation program’ (student), putting real people and the stories at the heart of buzzwords like decoloniality and co-production [5.8].

The accessible Quipu video guide has been promoted by the AHRC ( https://ahrc-blog.com/2020/05/28/ending-the-silence-the-quipu-project/), who used Quipu as an example of best practice at the 2017 Mobilizing Global Voices International Development Summit. Collaborators on Quipu have used the project as a springboard to establish themselves in South American and British creative technology and interactive documentary. For example, Ros Lerner, co-producer of Quipu, founded Lucida Media based in Peru, producing documentaries on climate change and participatory media projects with communities in disaster risk areas. Invitations to speak in Lima, Bristol, London, Bogotá, Santiago and Mexico City have demonstrated the way that the project inspired a new wave of participatory story-telling using digital methodologies to reach as broad and deep an audience as possible, engaging marginalised people in contemporary mainstream dialogue and becoming co-creators of their own participatory narratives. Maria Court, co-producer of Quipu and now an established practitioner and educator in the field in Chile, said that Quipu ‘was our first experiment of an interactive documentary which allowed us to continue exploring and researching about new ways of telling social impact stories. We were encouraged to work as a team, to keep developing future projects working hand in hand with the new technologies available. It expanded our horizons on how we can represent and understand reality’ [5.8]. In 2019 Quipu was chosen by the World Merit and SIMA to represent the Sustainable Development Goals around the world: the director of SIMA called Quipu ‘an exemplary work of impact storytelling that raises crucial awareness, celebrates the resilience of Peruvian women and the power of grassroots community initiatives to hold government accountable’ [5.6].

The legacy of Quipu

Quipu’s pioneering work to deliver social change in Latin America through co-produced collective storytelling has since been adopted more widely at Bristol, for example in the AHRC Peace Festival projects (GBP79,248) and the UKRI/Newton/Colciencias ‘Bringing Memories in from the Margins’ (GBP403,688), which is working directly with the Gender Working Group of the Truth Commission in Colombia using Professor Brown’s research findings on communicating collective storytelling in order to collect testimonies from marginalised women across the country. A Truth Commissioner in Colombia said that she was inspired by Quipu to adopt a similar research methodology in order to collect a greater diversity of testimonies of Colombia’s armed conflict [5.10]. Inspired by Quipu, the Transform Drug Policy Foundation created a platform campaigning for a change in drug policy both in the UK and in Mexico [5.10]. It is anticipated that Quipu’s impact will continue to resonate during the next decade.